NFFO Chief Executive's report

As we enter 2012 I think that it is true to say that there is great anxiety about what lies ahead for the fishing industry.

This is strange because it is clear that the basics of our industry are sound. Fishing is based on a renewable resource which, if managed carefully, will produce healthy food for generations to come. Demand is high and rising, and fish will make a major contribution to food security in the coming years. This is no sunset industry. Furthermore, the significant increase in fishing opportunities announced at the December Council of Ministers suggests that a corner has been turned. Many stocks are at or heading for maximum sustainable yield.

And yet, throughout the industry there is a foreboding about the future. T

The problems we face are not exclusively derived from the politics of managing the resource. Nevertheless, our experience over the last decade suggests that despite the potential for the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy to lead to significant improvements, there are also reasons to be deeply concerned.

Almost all serious commentators now recognise that a CFP organised around an over-centralised command and control approach across many, diverse and geographically spread fisheries, was doomed to failure from the start. A decentralised CFP, beginning with a transfer of decision- making responsibilities to the regional seas level, offers many possibilities for a more effective, more responsive and more adaptive CFP, with a high degree of involvement by the principle stakeholders through the regional advisory councils.

But constrained by the treaties, with doubts over the Commission’s commitment to surrender real power, and anxieties about the consequences of co-decision making with the European Parliament, there is genuine doubt about how far and in what direction the reform will take us. When the Danish Presidency takes over the EU Presidency on 1st January 2012, discussions on CFP reform will move up a gear but the outcome is far from clear.

Other components of the reform generate similar concerns. Whilst a system of transferable fishing concessions would not seen to vary much from the arrangements already in place in the UK, a mandatory system imposed at the European level would appear to have all the characteristics of a one-size-fits all approach that the rest of the reform proposals purports to move away from. And although the reduction of discards is plainly a priority for both the industry and politicians, a cosmetic “ban” within a mandatory timeframe hardly helps us deal with the complex and varied drivers for different kinds of discards. Equally, a dogmatic approach to achieving maximum sustainable yield for all species in a mixed fishery to a rigid timetable could cause great harm and impede real progress.

Beyond the CFP, access to customary fishing grounds has become a critically important issue, as pressure from offshore developments, such as offshore wind-farms and the establishment of a network of marine protected areas, has potential to displace fishing vessels. The advent of marine spatial planning ought to provide a rational framework for offshore co-existence but its arrival is too late for these massive changes that will potentially have profound consequences on where we can fish.

On the domestic front, there is a need to address the imbalance between capacity and the availability of quota in specific under-10metre fisheries, without destabilising the delegated quota management arrangements that have broadly served us well.

All of this points to the need for the fishing industry, of whatever vessel size, fishing method or location on the coast, to put aside their factional differences and to work together. It is easy to focus on past grievances difficult personalities and narrow sectional issues and to miss the central point of fishing politics: united we stand: divided we fall.

The NFFO represents all fishermen, whatever the size of their vessel or fishing method. By building alliances with other fishing groupings and other stakeholders in the regional advisory councils, it is possible to exert influence over a wider field. Despite our fears and anxieties about what lies ahead, we have little choice but to stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends and allies to forge a future that realises the potential of our industry as a sustainable and profitable supplier of high quality and healthy food.